Guild Wars 2

This has nothing to do with the idea of a “dedicated” healer class – it has everything to do with this stat currently being worthless, as the playstyle it is meant to support… isn’t supported by it nearly as well as other stats.

I am not asking to make this a good heal in regards to how well it supports – on the contrary, I’m asking to make it good at DEFENSIVE SELF HEALING. It currently scales better for group healing than for self-healing.

NOT working as intended.

Apathy.6430:

To be more of a tangible comparison, you should add in the percentage increases along with the total gain.

Like your first example, an increase of less than 5%

Worth noting. The numbers feel even smaller when you look at it that way.

+300 isn’t a terribly large amount of +healing to be sure, but you think it would be more improvement than 5%, when I can gain a much larger ratio of health by grabbing Vitality.

I’m not sure where else to put this, as there isn’t really a place to make posts for general game/skills balance in regards to stats across all professions, so I thought I’d put this here…

Healing Power is 100% worthless. Conceptually it’s a great stat, but in the current implementation, with the way abilities and effects scale with the stat, it doesn’t actually do anything that makes it worth grabbing over other stats, such as Toughness, Vitality, or even Boon Duration.

As an example, I’ll use my Elementalist, which I popped into the Mists for this. With absolutely no +healing from traits or gear, I’m going to show numbers for skills that heal, and then compare those numbers to when you have +300 Healing from traits.
The only reason I’m using Elementalist is because they have so many different heals. Feel free to include another profession’s values if you feel the need to see how it fares for others. This is not a discussion about Elementalists, but about Healing Power as a stat.

Mind you that all of these values are for a level 80 character. With +644 Vitality on this Elementalist from the amulet, I still have 17,245 HP, just to show how small these heals really are (and that isn’t much HP at all, relatively). (note that taking it off drops me down to just over 10k – Vitality scales really well!)

Glyph of Elemental Harmony

• Base healing is – 4,894
• +300 from traits – 5,119
• Total gain – 225
  4.59% increase

Signet of Restoration

• Base healing is – 3,275 (202 per cast)
• +300 from traits – 3,425 (232 per cast)
• Total gain – 150 (30 per cast)
  4.58% increase

Ether Renewal (4 pulses over the duration)

• Base healing is – 418 per pulse (1672 total)
• +300 from traits – 448 per pulse (1792 total)
• Total gain – 30 per pulse (120 total)
  7.17% increase (smaller heal scales better, go figure?)

Water Blast (auto attack skill)

• Base healing is – 370
• +300 from traits – 400
• Total gain – 30 (for an auto attack, expected?)
  8.1% increase

Healing Rains (specifically each application of 4 seconds of Regen)

• Base healing is – 2,080
• +300 from traits – 2,680
• Total gain – 600 (Hey wait a minute…)
  28.8% increase

Geyser (heals per second, 2 second duration)

• Base healing is – 808 (1616 total)
• +300 from traits – 883 (1766 total)
• Total gain – 80 (160 total – odd duck)
  9.9% increase

Cleansing Wave

• Base healing is – 1,302
• +300 from traits – 1,602
• Total gain – 300 (Starting to note something here)
  23.04% increase

Cone of Cold (Applies 4 hits of both damage and healing)

• Base healing is – 740 (2960 total)
• +300 from traits – 836 (3344 total)
• Total gain – 96 (384 total – hey, more than 1:1 ratio at least?)
  12.97% increase

Water Trident

• Base healing is – 1,448
• +300 from traits – 1,748
• Total gain – 300 (another 1:1 ratio!)
  20.7% increase

I think that’s most of the Elementalist heals. Maybe I left out some details, but I think I’ve made my point. Not only do skills scale terribly with healing, relative to how Vitality and Toughness scale…
But it specifically scales in such a way as to benefit supportive healing more than self-healing, even though self-heals in general are significantly smaller and less impactful than a self-heal.

What incentive do I have to get this stat over others? I see none. Even when I want to support my team, I feel like I could contribute more to the team with different stat allocations (especially focused at keeping myself alive).

I have no idea how well Toughness scales, as we don’t get to see numbers for it, but with Vitality… my Elementalist has 13,805 HP with +300 from traits, and 10,805 without.
I gain 10 HP for every 1 point of Vitality (27.7% increase). When I add +Healing, my self-heal of choice (the Glyph) only gains 0.75 healing for every 1 point of Healing. Sure, I get to heal HP with that button, and it can be used more than once per battle… but only if I survive long enough to use it more than once.

Rainsfords.7419:

@Drake yes, that’s how you would assume it works. But to quickly test it, go to the Mists and put 15 points in Arcana and 5 in Earth. When you switch out of Earth, you keep the little icon on the bottom of the screen but you immediately lose your extra toughness.

If THAT is the case, then it would be broken, yes. Definitely should report that!

I’m also wondering, exactly, how this interacts with skills like Glyph of Elemental Harmony and traits like Inscription or Elemental Surge or Evasive Arcana. I will need to test those out specifically, but I suspect that you get boons/effects from both attunements.

Lingering Elements doesn’t affect Elemental Attunement. It affects the 5-point traits in each of the other 4 trait lines, and any other trait that only is in effect when you’re in an attunement.

Haven’t you noticed that, with Lingering Elements, what happens is that, when you switch from, say, Water to Fire…

You see BOTH water and fire attunement icons on your little list of buffs, for 5 seconds?

This means that everything that affects SPECIFICALLY you being in that attunement will also linger for 5 seconds.

So the Earth trait, +80 Toughness, lingers. The Air trait, +10% move speed, lingers. The Water trait, regenerate HP, lingers. Flame Barrier? Lingers.

You know what else lingers? “+10% damage while in Air attunement” traits. All that stuff.

Affects that happen specifically when you switch attunements, however, such as applying boons to yourself, applying an aoe effect, those do not “linger” any longer.

Lemasive.5136:

Because its quite viable in Pvp and WnW also ezmode in Dungeons?

It’s more viable to use all four elements.

Sorry OP, but you’re just plain wrong. Elementalist isn’t underpowered or weak, just hard to learn, because it really emphasizes a lot of the things that are different between GW2 combat and standard MMO combat.

If you know how to play, it’s plenty viable. And don’t give me that nonsense saying “BUT IF YOU DON’T KNOW-” I don’t care. If you don’t know how to play, you’re going to fail, period, regardless of profession. Doesn’t matter how much work that knowing is. Some are going to be easier than others. This happens in all other MMOs, and yet people still complain about it, as if it’s ever going to change.

Elementalist is the profession you play when you want something complex. You either deal with it, or reroll, but don’t you dare say it’s not viable, when itkittenwell is.

Elementalists aren’t meant to take hits, plain and simple. There’s other ways to prevent and avoid damage.

Fully agree that Elementalist downed skills aren’t that great, but you’d have to be an idiot to compare it to Thief downed skills. Thieves don’t have many options for causing a Rally, so obviously the #1 downed skill has to be fast-attacking and multi-target, as it’s our only offensive option period. Maybe it’s better in PvP where people can be fooled/tricked and have a hard time finding you, but PvE mobs? Nope.

I do think that they should add a Blind effect to the #1 spam skill, and the #2 skill should be a PBAOE launch instead.

Wait, you mean you would want to see “dual wield” skills like what the Thief has for everybody?

Doubt they’d do that.

metaphorm.6904:

its easy to Pistol Whip spam awful players. non-awful players will use a stun break

They don’t even need to stun break. The stun that Pistol Whip applies doesn’t last for the full duration of the sword slashing.

I don’t even bother checking what I have. I steal. Then I use it. Hasn’t bitten me in the behind yet.

FluffyDoe.7539:

That’s a really great idea. I mean, the weapon ‘types’ are already enough, so instead of adding new weapons to get new skills, have this idea of being able to do more with weapon mixing between off-hand and main-hand. Referring to what the TC & others have said, start with: no weapons on off-hand = 2 new skills. Then later on, if more skills need to be added, they can continue with this method of adding combinations to the main-hand /off-hand – for example: every 1-handed weapon can go on off-hand or main-hand, and by swapping it it will give that weapon combination a whole new 5 skill set. So, that will literally provide a future capacity of doubling the skills in this game (more customization options).

Again, I think the TC’s suggestion is the best suggestion for adding new skill (because it combines the need for “weapon desires” [what everyone wants] as well as giving more skills in the process).

I don’t think that wielding something just in the off-hand really makes as much sense, actually. It’s a cool idea, but I like to see the “main hand” as your character’s dominant hand (and we all just happen to be right-handed visually).

Kalithro.6532:

Yea that could have some cool ideas… Like having the 4 / 5 skills have animations to hold the weapon with both hands and strike… or swap hands thus switching out what you do with skills 1-3 temporally. Or stick the target and pull the sword out with suport of your other hand… skill 5?

Or with your fist… you punch the mob in the face

It also gives Thieves a chance to have a “hidden blade” I dare say!

mickers.2715:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

I think you must be missing something. My Thief is the most mobile of all the professions I’ve played. And I’ve played all 8 of them! Maybe it ties with Ranger, but it’s still amazingly mobile.

ranger isnt very mobile apart from warhorn which isnt very good for fights. Warriors ele’s and engineers all have much better mobility.

Rangers are plenty mobile. You just have to build it right. Though, to be fair, I should say that Mesmer is what it would tie with. Mesmer and Thief have very similar “roles”

I’m glad other people out there are starting to figure this out. I think this kind of message can be applied to more than just Thief pvp – it’s true also for PvE, and for every other profession. You need to figure out your role on a team, and build accordingly, and play accordingly.

I’d like to think that, as this game goes on over time, we’ll start developing a meta game where both PvE groups and PvP teams have soft “roles” the way LoL teams do. Even WvWvW could have this. There will be groups of people to zerg, and siege, and whatnot… while smaller teams will go around with more precise goals, capping smaller points, etc etc.

@Gathslan – I’m pretty sure the special starter item is soulbound from the moment you make your character.

ALL other professions do NOT have reliable ways to get stability. Don’t fool yourself.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability

Some are better at it, and some are worse at it. We just have to deal. What the Engineer had with the Flamethrower before was straight-up OP.

Eviator.9746:

In the mists near some golems I found that the Big Ol’ Bomb does not actually work as a blast finisher either in or out of combat. I also found that Throw Mine and Mine Field, both listed as blast finishers, are not (the setup parts, not the detonate parts). Is this intended and the tool-tips are wrong, or are the skills bugged?

Side note: all other fields and finishers worked great.

You should certainly push ESC, go into Support, and click Report Bug, filling out the appropriate details on these skills.

I’m pretty sure some of the tooltips are wrong.

And on the other hand, some skills aren’t working correctly.

They just nerfed Heartseeker, so “HS spammers” aren’t going to do nearly so hot as they have been.

Frankly, what they need to do, is swap the functionality of the Scepter auto-attack with the Focus #4. You ever notice the way that skill works? It’s a ray of light that quickly bounces among multiple enemies/allies, blinding, regenning, and cleansing conditions.

I’d like to see an enemy-only version of that for the Scepter auto-attack. Hell, maybe the Focus skill wouldn’t even need to change.

Yawg.1294:

The biggest problem with Hammer has always been the lack of synergy between its skills.
While the individual skills are very powerful at what they do they just don’t work that well together. If I launch a target I can no longer hit it, if I immobilize a distant target that’s also of little use for me. These types of skills would better fit on a ranged weapon.
Of course I can imagine having an organized dungeon or PvP team making good use out of each of the hammer skills, but the lack of synergy in of itself isn’t good for solo or chaos (open word pve, wvw).

Actually, if you put down the non-passing ring, and then launch your enemy, you can still hit them.

Frankly, I don’t want the third attack animation to be “sped up”

I want the third attack and the #2 skill to be swapped. That’s my personal beef with the Hammer. (and maybe that third attack can apply Weakness, if it NEEDS to be special, but the combo finisher should be special enough)

Marrond.1385:

1h sword with no offhand should have diffrent skill setup. It should have skills that fits swiftness and grace of wanderer whilist sword+shield are representing the tough soldier.

Not sure quite what you mean there.

I’d just want to be able to actually see a single-wielded weapon as an option. Hell, Elementalists could have JUST a Scepter, and not be forced into Scepter/Focus or Scepter/Dagger if they don’t want to.

Ajwz.7316:

Again to re-iterate – I do not have a problem with burning or how it operates.

I do have a problem with too many abilities causing the burning effect.
My proposed solution is not to change the way burning operates, but to change some of the abilities that inflict burning to just deal damage straight up instead

The thing is that… they already do straight-up damage. O_o

You’ve got to remember that not all Elementalists pick the 1200 range Staff.

And even then, there’s plenty of value in bunching up a group of enemies.

Calcifire.1864:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Ajwz.7316:

Leiloni.7951:

In return for only stacking in duration, burning does more damage than a stack of bleeding. So while you can stack bleeding in intensity, you need to have more stacks of it and ends up being more like a traditional DoT. Burning does decent damage in my opinion.

I’m not complaining about burning as a whole – I think it is fine. It’s just that way too many of the skill have it as an effect (often it is the only damage not just a bonus) and for something which does only stack duration this isn’t a good thing.

How is that NOT a good thing?

Explain that to me. Adding more Burning duration = adding more Burning damage. That’s all there is to it, and there’s nothing bad about that.

I guess the point is that if a mob only lasts for, say, 30 seconds, it doesn’t matter if you have 31 seconds or a years worth of burning on it

one thing that is interesting is that burning and poison have the potential to literally become death sentences if you stack them enough for the total damage to be greater than the mobs health, for example, if a mob had 1000 health and burning hit for 100 damage per second, 10 seconds of burning have doomed that mob (and made any more burning pointless)

It can matter if that mob has condition removal. Some do. If you know they don’t, and think there’s a different target that now needs to have a “full” stack of Burning (i.e. you think the Burning alone will kill that mob) then hey, this means multi-dotting is smart and rewarding!

Pyrite.9641:

Thanks! Yes that was what I was thinking, I misunderstood the conditions for how the various talents interacted.

Well, your build wouldn’t be “bad” necessarily, it’s just a build that makes each individual attunement stronger, so the traits you picked only work at certain times.

It’s not a bad method at all, it’s just probably one that would be difficult to master. You also have to gauge: Is being able to run 10% faster (or 25% faster, in the case of that certain air trait) for an extra 5 seconds after you switch to a different attunement THAT valuable? What about an extra 80 Toughness? Or having that “burn people who attack you” thing?

It can be. Maybe. Situationally. I think your build is more along the lines of “I switch to this attunement for a specific purpose.” rather than a build that switches constantly and rapidly. So, for example, you switch to Earth because you need the AoE knockdown and/or the aoe-cripple-blast. I figure that means you need to knockdown and run away, or chase somebody (more likely the case, considering that you can’t move during #5, and considering how the #3 is a ranged immob + gap closer).

elchulo.3148:

Total crap that good players will do just as well with any class. Elementalists are a waste of time right now in spvp. I re-rolled a thief in spvp and was facerolling in about 2 mins.

That’s because Thieves aren’t hard to play, and most people are too dumb to know how to kill them.

morrolan.9608:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

It’s… not at all irrelevant. “skill cap” has nothing to do with under/over-powered.

But thats what I’m saying, if you compare players of similar skill on other classes and Ele always comes out behind then they are unbalanced.

Fully disagree. What you’re saying is the equivalent of “That player died because he didn’t dodge. Therefore, the ability that killed him is OP.”

If players are bad, you cannot judge them in regards to class balance.

I think this makes a lot of sense. It really should be a Greatsword that matches your attunement.

kschmidt.5901:

None of those movement speed buffs stack.

Swiftness will stack with them, but they won’t stack with each other. :<

Grundnir.3852:

Also keep in mind the 5 pointers for each attunement only apply while you are actually in that attunement, thus making the IV on Air that much weaker to rely on.

They also last for an extra 5 seconds if you have the 15-point minor in Arcane.

More OT: I feel this build is what the OP is looking for. Emphasizes attunement swapping, applying boons to yourself, and also still gives plenty of condition removal, mobility, and stun-breaking. (and having a pet you can summon doesn’t hurt, but honestly ANY of the elites would work)
It’s not too difficult to swap out other utilities/traits and still maintain that basic playstyle, of course, but I feel that if the core of your build is “I’m going to swap attunements a lot!” (which is exactly the playstyle full Arcane supports), then you don’t want to pick traits that only benefit specific attunements.

You can do so, and it would work, I just think, personally, that it would be less effective.

Ajwz.7316:

Leiloni.7951:

In return for only stacking in duration, burning does more damage than a stack of bleeding. So while you can stack bleeding in intensity, you need to have more stacks of it and ends up being more like a traditional DoT. Burning does decent damage in my opinion.

I’m not complaining about burning as a whole – I think it is fine. It’s just that way too many of the skill have it as an effect (often it is the only damage not just a bonus) and for something which does only stack duration this isn’t a good thing.

How is that NOT a good thing?

Explain that to me. Adding more Burning duration = adding more Burning damage. That’s all there is to it, and there’s nothing bad about that.

I will say this much: I’m a bit surprised that Burning doesn’t reduce an enemy’s outgoing damage by 1% per stack, stacking up to 25, the same way Poison does for outgoing healing.

Ajwz.7316:

The elementalists util skills, traits, sand even signets found on thier equipment add too many burning skills to the game, and since burning stack duration rather than intesity this is makes them a little UP.
Utils like Cleansing fire should deal regular damage rather than just add burns.

I disagree. Burning is actually incredibly powerful. When you see Burning on your conditions list, and the little bar around the icon is ticking down very slowly, you’re going to wish you had condition removal, because that can often kill you by itself.

Bleed damage only surpasses Burning once you manage to get it up to 8 stacks – though it can be less than that, depending on how much condition damage you have. The wiki lists the damage calculation for both Bleeding and Burning, so you can see why people have figured this out.

The disadvantage here is that getting high stacks of Bleeding can be difficult against enemies with plenty of condition removal, or if you simply aren’t able to maintain constant pressure with abilities that apply Bleeding, or simply aren’t able to maintain high stacks period with your particular build.

Burning, however, is always at 100% power.

Lillian Wandom Hale.7102:

If you have a life, like me, you probably often check on your keyboard which F1-F4 are you choosing, because you don’t know 100% for certain on which button is your finger

This is a fairly huge assumption. Many of us who have lives don’t have this problem. I spent $80 on a Razer Naga over two years ago, and have my F1-F4 keys instead keybound to Shift+1 through Shift+4, and I know exactly which button my thumb is on, because I use my sense of touch.
I also have already memorized, without trying, that it’s Fire, Water, Air, and Earth, in that order.

How does any of that mean I don’t have a life?

Why are my options in regards to what weapons I wield limited, specifically, to either dual-wielding or 2handers?

I would like the option to say, on my Warrior for example, wield a sword. And just a sword. Nothing in the off-hand!

Unfortunately, doing this gives me 3 skills… not 5. What if main-hand weapons gave us 5 skills, with the last two being replaced when wielding a weapon in the off-hand? (three for the Thief)

And no, I don’t mean wielding one Sword should be the same as dual-wielding Swords. I mean that, when you wield a Sword in your main-hand by itself, you get different skills in slots 4 and 5 then if you were wielding two Swords!

INB4 damage is brought up: The damage of skills 4 and 5 are exclusively decided by the weapon in your off-hand, and the damage of skills 1, 2, and 3 are exclusively decided by the weapon in your main-hand. Main-hand skills are not AT ALL affected by the weapon in your off-hand.

So if you were single-wielding a Sword, and it gave you all 5 skills, skills 4 and 5 would just use the damage of your main-hand weapon, and skills 1, 2, and 3 would still deal the same damage.

What they really need to do is, across all professions, make wielding a single weapon viable.

This means, if you have a Sword and nothing in the off-hand, you should get 5 skills, not 3.

Obviously, this should not apply for “off-hand only” weapons, such as Focus, Shield, Torch.

The real question is: How many other hoods are there in the game? Far too many of the head options for medium armor are just differently textured masks.

I think you must be missing something. My Thief is the most mobile of all the professions I’ve played. And I’ve played all 8 of them! Maybe it ties with Ranger, but it’s still amazingly mobile.

Have to agree with this. The voice actors did the best they could with the material given, and I don’t fault them for their performances.

I do fault the dialogue for being on the level of B movies, however.

Bloodtau.4672:

This has got to be the worst city out of them all. It’s so boring and frustrating.
For example, I apparently still have 3 POI inside imperator’s core, yet i’ve been around every inch of it and they still say they are above me.

Some of them can be below you, and some of them are in instanced areas, such as where the Imperator’s office is.

I actually really enjoy the Black Citadel. Dunno what the rest of you are talking about.

Dreiken.3290:

Hello buddies!

I’ve a Charr Warrior lvl 52, and during my PvE story I became Warmaster of the Vigil, but that’s it!

I’ve no more “titles” and in the character select page only the Vigil sigil is enlighted. The other two are grey…

Can you tell me if I have to wait for more lvls or I just missed something?

Does it have some benefits to become Warmaster, centurion etc… or is it just something cool related to the PvE Story?

Thanks

You can only get one of those three on a specific character. To get the others unlocked, other characters need to do it.

However, those are not titles.

ReginaBuenaobra.6953:

Another option for naming your charr is to add something that they’re good at or a characteristic they’re known for. For example:

• Sicaea the Shrouded
• Rhendak the Crazed
• Kaladrian the Greedy

Well that’s pretty standard for all fantasy names, but I personally feel like such “titular” names are better fitting for Sylvari, just as say… naming your Asura with “Progenitor” or some other sort of honorific in front of it, really only fits well for the Asura.

There’s good exceptions to this. Such as Smodur the Unflinching. That has a real “charr” feel to it. “Sicaea the Shrouded” however, makes me think of a sylvari.

Auldwolf had a really good post, btw.

I also am getting tired of the way tails clip through certain skirts/coats. I’m wishing they would alter each and every armor skin more than just in the proportions to fit on your character, but also in consideration for certain racial features.

Like tails.

Karl McLain.5604:

Hammer love is already in the works!

I don’t think the recent change was enough Hammer love. The ability to Chill, half the time, but only when you crit, and only once every 45 seconds… is very little!

Would certainly love to see a Spirit Weapon in the Elite skill (maybe even one that summons multiple Spirit Weapons?) at the least. Surely they could get more creative with the Guardian style and put out more skills!

Fully agree with “last represented the guild” column, but it’s important to note that characters and players are not separated in guild lists. If that character hasn’t represented the guild in the last 2 months, no character on that whole account has, and typically that means that player doesn’t participate in your guild.

However, right now, the game hasn’t even been out for one month, so let’s be patient. I’m still trying to build up influence for my personal “just my girlfriend and me” guild, and so haven’t participated in any of the larger guild communities beyond representing to give them their daily 10 influence.

BTW, that daily 10 influence can be counted as “taxes”
I do not want the ability to “tax” guildies.

I would rather see that I “level up” my weapon skills, by 3-5 stages, as I use them more and more.

Can we get a little tab in our trait window that allows us to, with a short cooldown even, swap between 2-3 pre-set trait builds, when outside of combat specifically?

Due to the nature of how this game works, with not every set of skills and traits working for all things equally, I often find myself wishing that I could adjust my trait build without having to waypoint to a city and spend coin at an NPC. From fight to fight in a dungeon, or from DE to DE, I’m often wishing I could switch that all up on the fly.

It’s easier in PvP. Between every match, you can change up your build for whatever you need, free of charge, right there in the lobby. Though in that case, you still have the problem of being unable to adjust your build for the sake of countering the other team more effectively.

Sure, I can change individual major traits, for when I change to other skills and weapon sets, but then I’m not using a build that benefits the playstyle I just switched to!